Guiding Principles Conference
LaCrosse, Wisconsin
March 28-29, 2009
Caring ... Honesty ... Respect ... Responsibility
The two-day conference brought together Camp Echo Trip Guides past and present with the goal of collecting information on what makes an Echo Trip an Echo Trip.
Todd Israelite and Kate Jones of Green Circle Partners donated their time and expertise to facilitate the conference.
Additional Lead Organizers of the conference included Shane DuBow, Mike McMahon, Steve Newman, and Chris Hart.
Click here to read an overview of the conference.
Click here for the FAQ.
Click here to see the pre-work assignment.
Holly Lockley, a colleague of Todd's and Kate's, donated her time and video expertise to record the entire conference, after which she created an hour-long movie of the highlights of the event.
Click here to view the QuickTime movie.
Notes from the conference were summarized and a second, smaller group met at the McGaw YMCA in Evanston on Friday April 17, 2009.
The purpose of that meeting was to distill and organize the conference notes into a document that defines what makes an Echo Trip an Echo Trip.
From that, the Lead Organizers created a document entitled, "Six Guiding Principles and a Simple Rule."
Click here to read the Notes from the Conference.
Click here to read the Guiding Principles.
Click here for the Guiding Principles FAQ.
The Notes from the Conference were run through a wordle program that generated the "word cloud" below from the text we provided.
The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. How cool is that?
Practices for the Principles
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Each year going forward, the Camp Echo Trip Staff will review and discuss the Guiding Principles.
The group will then develop a list of "practices" that enable them to implement the Guiding Principles.
While the practices may change from year to year, the Guiding Principles will endure.
Click here to view the 2009 Practices document.
Origin of the Echo Trip Program
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Based on his long history with Camp Echo, going back to 1976, Rob Grierson, Camp Echo Director, was asked to research and record
the genesis of the Camp Echo Adventure Trip Program. Rob consulted his own notes from the late 1970s, dug out camp brochures from the 1980s,
and consulted with Bill Geiger, Muriel Brunger, Marie Roche, Peter Frankel, and Jon Brenner.
Click here to view a version with Lo-Res scans (472K).
Click here to view a version with Hi-Res scans (9.7M).
Click here to view a collection of nearly 250 pictures from the first 25 years of the Camp Echo Adventure Trip program.
A Brenner Runs Through It Scholarship Endowment
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Jon Brenner played a significant role in the development of the Camp Echo Adventure Trip Program.
Of the many Camp Echo Adventure Trips Jon created, inspired, and led, his favorite will always be the Trailblazers Trip.
Trailblazers is an entry-level trip for 7th and 8th graders.
Groups of 12 girls, and separately 12 boys, canoe for three days on the Big Two Hearted River, and hike for three days on the North Country Trail.
Recognizing Jon's role in the history of Camp Echo Adventure Trips and his special love for the Trailblazers trip,
a group of former trip guides and friends of Echo who are close to Jon have established, and provided seed money for, the "A Brenner Runs Through It" scholarship endowment.
The purpose of the "A Brenner Runs Through It" scholarship endowment is to generate two scholarships annually to one boy and one girl Trailblazer.
The hope is that their participation in this trip will start them down the trail of even more adventure trips.
Click here to read more about the "A Brenner Runs Through It" scholarship endowment.
Click here to download the "A Brenner Runs Through It" gift agreement.
Click here to donate to the scholarship endowment using PayPal.
"The trip taught me more than how to cook food and appreciate nature, it taught me how to relate to the world, to nature, to other people and to be myself."
